To the Letter of the Law
by LadyNightRunner
Summary: The ABCs of how and why their relationship works. It doesn't always make sense. Sometimes it's painful, or messy, or an disaster, but it is their unbelievable disaster, and they wouldn't have it any other way. Reno/Tseng


This happened thanks to an alphabetical fic on y!gallery. It was inspiring, and this is the result. Any other match you'd like to see me do as an ABC theme list?

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A** is for the green apples Reno loves to eat; for Reno's audacity in nearly everything work related, Tseng's cool, collected attitude, and the massive antique sleigh bed they found at an auction; it is for Sunday afternoons spent cuddled together on a couch with nothing better to do.

**B **is for the blood they spill so often, the blood Reno likes to touch and taste and get himself covered in while Tseng complains and occasionally gags in a corner. It is the blue of the ocean off the coast of the Icicle Inn area and the color of Tseng's lips after he's taken his annual polar bear swim. Maybe Reno deserves better than the title of boyfriend, but it's still too much fun to say what he never had the guts to say in high school

**C **is for coffee, gulped down scalding hot on late mornings, warm and sweet on late nights where there is paperwork to be done, strong and dark after a long mission, sipped cold with cream in corner cafés on lazy days, and faint acid traces on Reno's tongue in the privacy of their apartment.

**D **is the darkness that he knows lurks at the edge of his safe little piece of the world. It is the deep gray of Tseng's eyes, the daring first words of 'would you care to have dinner with me tomorrow night?' that started all this; Dinner is always better homemade, but eating out at some posh place when you're with the hottest man in the room is a treat like no other. And, of course, D is for_ damn_, which is all he could say when he saw Tseng punked out because Reno wanted to go dancing at his kind of club.

**E **is for exhaustion, the state of which they both know too well; for the spike of energy just seeing each other can bring; it is the enemies they have made of society and public opinion, for Reno finally seeing the error of his promiscuous ways, for the look on Tseng's face when he shoves a piece of sushi into Reno's face and says 'eat.'

**F** is the four years they have spent together as more than superior and subordinate. It is the fur of the cats Reno brought to Tseng as kittens after their first fight, the firsts they have had together. It is for the drawn out and very sarcastic way Tseng says fantastic when Reno announces that he has a new idea; for every frayed nerve, every frazzled moment, every frustration that makes up this thing they have.

**G **is every God Tseng prays to when Reno is off on a solo mission. He knows Reno is a good Turk and a good man, but he can't help thinking about what would happen if Reno didn't come back. Odds are good that he'd put a gun to his own head. It is also for the gumbo Tseng makes that generally comes served with a side of Reno's resigned groaning.

**H **is hot: dry heat on the beach when they have time for a vacation, hot and sweaty in their uniforms while Rufus gives a speech on an outdoor podium in the summer, hot, frantic undressing when they've been separated for too long, and Tseng's panic when Reno passed out from heat stroke.

**I **is instinctively knowing that something is up with Tseng and dropping everything to go see what the problem is. It's for eating ice cream in the middle of the winter because it won't melt, and seeing Tseng do what Reno has dubbed the 'icky dance' after Reno smashes a bug on or with whatever Tseng is working on at any given moment.

**J **is for jumping off a balcony and knowing that Reno is there to deploy net pitons before he becomes a greasy spot on the sidewalk. It is jars of raspberry jam, without which Tseng is a complete bear in the mornings; it's cleaning two local grocery stores out of strawberry Jell-O mix just to see what it's like to be in a bathtub full of it, and Reno jeering at Cloud from a high-up window that apparently isn't high enough because the rock that came sailing in just hit Reno squarely between the eyes.

**K **is for the kick in a pot of Reno's personal blend of coffee. It's hearing Reno's delighted yell of 'kick_ ass_, yo!' when Tseng channels his childhood training and flips out of a tree to land squarely on his adversary's shoulders; for kissing Reno in the rain on the steps of the ShinRa building; for karma; for crying on Tseng's shoulder when one of Kiku's kittens was stillborn.

**L **is for what they have that Rude just doesn't understand. It's for long nights pacing because Reno did something stupid _again_ and he's late coming back from a mission, for the way Tseng lazily licks his way up Reno's stomach, for risking life and limb to bring Tseng a cluster of lilacs and lilies after they fought, and for the look on Reno's face when Tseng explained how to get into the full lotus position.

**M** is for mayonnaise and cheese sandwiches, the most un-Wutai comfort food Tseng likes. It's for miles of open road and long minutes of comfortable silence between them. It is finding the face in the moon with Reno and the rabbit in it with Tseng, marshmallow cream making Reno's fingers and Reno's keyboard sticky while he does work with lunch in his hand, and for the tiny mewing noises Tseng makes when he's getting a really good backrub.

**N **is 'no, Reno, we are not going to strip and make good use of the nearest remotely horizontal surface' on long, boring days when there are no missions. It's navigating by Tseng's memories of Wutai and home, the smell of a new shampoo when Tseng steps out of the shower, and never having to say goodbye. It is nothing more important than the way Reno's skin tastes.

**O **is the obvious, the ordinary, the original. It is the orange light of a campfire deep in the mountains; it is for the smell of the oleander growing outside their building, sweet and heavy on summer nights when they sleep with the windows wide, for working with a boss open enough to let them be what they want to be.

**P **is the pressure to leave each other and pretend to be normal people. It's the president they work for, the people they protect, the pages on pages of reports to fill out. It's getting Rufus between them and running from the paparazzi, the wild retreat down hallways and up stairs until they find somewhere safe to hide and collapse, panting, on either side of their ruffled boss and laugh with the adrenaline until they're too exhausted to do anything more than lie there.

**Q **is twenty questions, Reno's favorite game to play when Tseng is working. It's the bright quilt they picked up at a craft fair, because Reno said that an old-fashioned bed like theirs needed an old-fashioned blanket and it feels so good to wrap up in on cold days. It is the quiet stillness of a hospital waiting room when one of them has been admitted after a mission, that heavy silence that hangs over everything until a doctor or nurse allows visitors, and the bliss of two weeks stuck in quarantine because of an outbreak they hadn't been anywhere near. Who cared? It was an excuse to stay together and have sex at every opportunity.

**R **is Reno. It's the red of his hair and the way his laughter rings in the hallway while he makes a hasty retreat after pranking someone. It's the reality that Tseng is living, the warm, loving body waiting for him when he's late and cuddling him when he's depressed. It is for the relatives on both sides of the family that they take delight in turning away, time and time again, and for going out onto the plains and just running until they can't take another step.

**S **is a night spent wrapped in blankets in Tseng's arms in the ER, running a fever of 105. It's slipping and bouncing down all fifteen steps to the front door of the ShinRa building and lying at the bottom, sore and cold, until Tseng sighs and starts down help him up, only to skid and do a reasonable imitation of Reno's fall. It's for the tang of the sour gummi worms Tseng keeps hidden in his desk and the smell of the spice cabinet when Tseng's really getting into his cooking.

**T **is for Tseng. It's for the tight muscle across his back and shoulders and the stylized Leviathan tattoo on his right hip. It's the tracery of scars on his knuckles, the way he yells and squirms when Reno gets his fingers into his ticklish spots, and the threats he makes whenever Reno pulls some silly trick. It's for the taste of tears when memory becomes too heavy a burden and he retreats to Reno's arms, where he is safe.

**U **is understanding that Tseng is going to spend the entire trip hanging over the deck railing and throwing up the lunch he probably didn't eat. It's for the fossilized thing Tseng thinks might have once been a blood-encrusted sock he unearthed while they were moving Reno out of his apartment. It's for the unenforced commandment that thou shalt not shuffle around in socks just to static-shock thine lover, the unorthodox uses they have found for common kitchen supplies, Reno's username on the ShinRa website- SexonLegs- and the way it makes Tseng groan every time he sees it, and for the unnumbered times Tseng has lain awake at night and just marveled at how such a wild, beautiful man is all his.

**V **is explaining to Reno that even if it's only a mild case, viral pneumonia is not something you simply ignore and try to bulldoze through. It's hours spent teaching Tseng the problem-solving merits of playing virtual reality games, the stack of old VHS tapes that sat in a corner of the living room until Tseng managed to find each and every one of them on DVD, and the view from the tiny rental cabin up in the mountains near North Corel, where they are along with each other for a blissful week every year, and once for two weeks when they were snowed in.

**W **is for how positively edible Reno looks when he's soaking wet, and for the white hairs Tseng pulls as soon as he finds them. It's for the war that still leaves Tseng wide awake in the middle of the night, wet with sweat and afraid to go back to sleep until Reno wakes and cuddles him, stroking his hair and whispering sweet nonsense in his ear.

**X **is calming Tseng down after he's had to tolerate yet another xenophobic outburst from some backwater businessman Rufus wants to take over. It's the copies of certain bodyparts they hadn't realized they'd left behind after a quick meeting at the Xerox machine, the absolutely phenomenal dumplings at the tiny restaurant in Xingtan, and the wild victory dance Tseng did when his xiphium iris bloomed.

**Y **is Reno's quiet, surprised 'yes' when Tseng asked if they ought to move in together and trying very hard not to laugh when Reno comes to Tseng whimpering about stings after he deliberately shot at a nest of yellow jackets. It's yielding to Reno's strang ideas about what constitutes a victory celebration; it's for Tseng laughing like a loon when Reno demonstrated his skill with a yo-yo, only to have it bounce off his knee-cap a minute later.

**Z **is for Tseng's zero-tolerance policy concerning mud tracked into the apartment by the cats or by Reno. It's the way the kitchen smells when Reno's been zesting lemons for a pie. It's the look on Tseng's face when Reno presented him with a brochure for a couple's deal at an onsen in Zhenjiang, Reno's rather feline screech whenever he gets his ponytail caught in the zipper on his jacket, and how both of them have declared war on cold medications with zinc in them.


End file.
